Ever since that time I have been getting tons of QoSAlerts. The "privvmpages" is going in to the black all of the time. (even at night when there are zero visitors on my websites) So I thought I was running out of memory. So I used the TOP command in SSH, I can monitor the memory usage live to see what is going on.

For the last 2 hours I have been monitoring the memory and load very closely via ssh. Not once have I been under 300mb of available memory. The 15 minute load numbers are also under 0.30. Yet I keep going in to the Black for privvmpages. I just had to restart the VPS in order to get everything back to normal, but I know that it will be a problem again within the hour.

It looks like it the limit needs to be at least double from the current limit of 131mb.

I have consulted Support, but all they told me is that I am running out of memory and that I need to upgrade to a dedicated server. This is completely bogus and SSH is confirming this. The new version of PLESK need more dedicated to privvmpages. How can I make this happen?

Interesting. Keep us posted here how this turns out for you. I haven't updated to 9.2 yet, (still running 9.0.2) and would be interested in knowing any "fixes" that need to be made should I upgrade to 9.2.

Well... I have a feeling that I am gonna have to go back to an older version of PLESK. I am guessing that there is no way they will increase the privvmpages parameter even though the people at PLESK say it needs to be done.

Apparently they think it's a 3rd party application causing the problems.... Yet they can't seem to explain to me why I am running in the BLACK over night when I have zero traffic... I noticed this problem when I upgraded to PLESK 9.2.1. Yet it's somehow it's 3rd party software.

So they recommend I upgrade to a dedicated plan. YEAH RIGHT!!!!

Right now my 15 minute load average on the server is 0.14. I have 387201k free of memory.... Yeah that type of load needs a dedicated server! What a joke!

One thing they did give me is a script that can tell me the current privvmpages level via SSH.... When I login to PLESK, that level jumps by 60mb. When I logged out it jump another 60mb. The problem is that the number never recover....

So just a few minutes ago my privvmpages was at 70%. I logged in to PLESK it jumped to 83% I logged out it jumped to 93% putting me in to the black. I log back in and restart the VPS. Then quickly log out. The level goes to 59% and settles at around 62% in a minute or two....

I am afraid to login to PLESK because I will run out of privvmpages memory real quick.... That is just not right!

EDIT: Now that I think back. Right after I upgraded PLESK to 9.2.1. I had to go in and make a few changes with the backups. When I did this, I probably caused the privvmpages memory to get high. It then never recovered. I go back in a day or so later to check things and I make the problem worse. I restart the VPS and I think everything is fine. I log in a few days later and start the whole memory problem over again. And keep going back in to make adjustments. Yet just going in is the cause. At least that is what I am finding.

I really think that logging in/out and working in PLESK 9.2.1 is causing my memory problems.

I am not using the SSH program via PLESK, but an outside program.... Just checking the numbers again 20 minutes later and I am still at 61%.

So.... I have figured out that PLESK is causing the PRIVVMPAGES memory to increase yet not giving the memory back when I am done using it. So now, after I make any changes in PLESK, I restart the VPS and then log out. Via ssh I can monitor my privvmpages and the levels stay in the 50-55% range.

So all is good right? Not quite.

I have noticed recently that one of my domains has been getting a lot of spam in the last few days... I check my spamassasin settings and everything appears to be set up correctly. So I decided to look at the actual emails to see what spamassasin is putting in the headers. That where I can see what kind of scores it is giving email coming through.

I noticed that the email coming in was missing this information. That tells me that spamassasin is not working properly hense the reason I was getting so much spam in the last week.

Seeing that I could not find a problem in the set up, I just went ahead and deleted the email account that was having problems and re-create it..... I did this.... Ran a few tests and the spamassasin headers we back and it was working great.

So now everything is good right? I assumed everything was good and since I was working in PLESK, I restarted the VPS when I was done so that I could get my privvmpages levels back down because by now I was back in the BLACK again... A few minutes later I got a spam email. It looked very obvious and I figured that spamassasin should have detected it. I check the headers to see the score and the headers were not there. Some how spamassasin was not working again.

What I have found is that the spamassasin settings for this domain are gone once I restart the VPS. I have confirmed this after multiple tests. So now I have a double problem. I need to restart the VPS after working in PLESK to keep the privvmpages memory down, but when I do this I lose my spamassasin settings for that domain. How strange is that?

The even stranger this is that my other 3 domains do not seem to be affected by this problem. They keep working just fine... I have submitted a ticket to support and I am waiting for a response. I hope they can figure this problem out.

What's even worse is that my tests are showing that PLESK is hogging privvmpages memory. Yet support does not believe it. After they got my support ticket they went in to PLESK to check things out. When tthey did this the privvmpages level went up to 99% usage. They did not follow my advise to restart the vps after working in PLESK, so I had to go back in and restart it myself. And of courses I and to re-create my email account again.

So I just responded to them with even more specifics... Giving them a step by step way of proving that PLESK is causing the privvmpages problems. Right now they must be in there because my privvmpages level is at 87%.... IF they don't "get it" this time I will have to go in myself again and restart the VPS and re-create my email account AGAIN.

It looks like I am stuck with the Spam Assassin problem because support just doesn't seem to have a clue..... I give them specifics and they respond by telling me that SA is configured correctly..... Yet I have shown them that it is clearly not.

So I am asking you guys if you have any clue as to what is going on with spam assassin on my site.... Here is the short version of the story. Ever since I upgraded to PLESK 9.2 SA has not been working properly. It shows that it is set up, but I am still getting a ton of spam. Looking at the Long Headers of the email coming in, it is missing the SA data. (See post above for what should be in the email) The only way to fix this problem is to delete the email account and re-create it. Once that is done, SA works fine. The info will be in the headers of emails and I KNOW it's working. BUT!!!! If the VPS gets restarted, SA stops working and that info is no longer in the headers of emails. Which tells me that SA is NOT WORKING..... Here is the kicker. This only happens for 2 of the 4 domains on my VPS. One of those domains I really don't use email, it essentially it affect 2 of 3 domains that I use. Yet all of them are set up the same way.

So what could be happening here? Why would SA stop working for 2 of 3 domains when the VPS is restarted? Yet all are set up properly. And everything was working fine until I upgraded PLESK from 8.6 to 9.2.

Another question..... Why in the hell are new versions of Spam Assassin not compatible with PLESK? The version offered to VPS users is 5 years old! I have a a feeling that as more time passes, more problems will start to happen with SA. How is SA expected to continue to do it's job when it is 5 years old? Would you use 5 year old virus software? I don't think so!